Project Twelve: Little Labels for Our Tea Jars

There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea (Bernard-Paul Heroux – 1900s Basque philosopher).

Tea. That great British Institution. Where would we be without it? The perfect drink for just about every occasion, from the exuberant celebration to the shocking catastrophe, one can always think up an agreeable reason for putting the kettle on.

Not satisfied with just one type of tea, we have at least four different varieties at any one time and tend to choose different ones depending on the occasion. Nothing beats a good Earl Grey though, the best variety, oh yes.

Anyway, I am rambling. I keep our tea in old Douwe Egberts jars on a shelf above the kettle, with little labels with the name of the tea on the front. These labels have always been handwritten, but I don’t much like my handwriting so I finally got on the computer and designed some lovely little labels on GIMP (open-source raster graphics software). Thanks to The Graphics Fairy I had a lovely little oval border and used a font that looks like old typewriter letters. Pretty.

Lapsang Souchong tea is a Chinese black tea with a distinctive smoky flavour that comes from drying the rolled tea leaves over pinewood fires. I love the bold distinctive flavour of this tea, but it is not suited to every occasion, and certainly not the right type of tea for a morning cuppa.

Earl Grey is also a Chinese black tea and gets its distinctive flavour and aroma from the addition of bergamot oil (oil extracted from the rind of the Bergamot orange). Earl Grey is by far my favourite tea and suits every occasion.

Darjeeling tea is Indian in origin (grown in the District of Darjeeling in the State of West Bengal), and although marketed as a black tea, it is technically oolong, thin-bodied and light in colour. I don’t care much for this tea but it is the boy’s favourite.

Normal tea and English Breakfast tea are just a variety of black tea blends with rich full-bodied flavours. A most satisfactory cup of tea, but with none of the subtle elegance that Earl Grey provides.

In the words of C. S. Lewis “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me”.